The Last One (22 page)

The host calls out a last-place welcome and Exorcist bounds over to sling his arms across his teammates’ shoulders. “Couldn’t stay away, could you?” he says to Waitress, ruffling her hair.

She recoils. “Can I
please
be on a different team?” she asks the host.

“Yes.”

Waitress stares. “Really?”

The host gestures to where the other contestants are seated. “But first, have a seat.” Waitress, Rancher, and Exorcist squeeze in so all eleven contestants are clustered together on the exposed rock face. Several interns and the producer appear, the former rushing about as the latter alternates between conferring and shouting orders. An intern hands the host a mirror. Rancher fields questions, answers them honestly.

“Tailbone?” asks Air Force. “He made it sound like the guy was dying.”

Waitress wonders about her new team, then notices additional cameramen approaching, covering the group from all angles. “Another Challenge?” she asks. “Don’t we get to rest?”

“Not when you’re last,” the host tells her, checking his teeth.

Waitress is about to protest that their tardiness isn’t her fault, that she shouldn’t be penalized, but she squelches the instinct as she realizes that though she’s not responsible for their cameraman being injured, her team’s position
is
in large part her fault. Either Rancher or Exorcist could have caught her mistake, but neither did, and it’s still
her
mistake.

I can’t depend on them, she thinks, and she looks around at the others. Her eyes lock on Zoo, who is digging dirt out from under her fingernails with a pine needle, and she thinks,
Yes.

Zoo notices her staring, sees her intent. She keeps her gaze firmly on her own fingernails, willing Waitress to look away. The last thing she wants is a useless someone depending on her.

13.

This time, I break the window with a rock. I throw it as hard as I can from about ten feet away and almost miss.

“In you go,” I say.

“You’re not coming?” asks Brennan.

I shake my head and he looks at me like I’m already leaving him behind.

“It’s a
boutique,
” I say. “I can see the back from here.” Which, of course, I can’t, but the blurriness beyond the window doesn’t feel very deep. We’re in a tourist-trap kind of town. All little cafés and kitschy gift shops. This store—its name in loopy cursive I don’t have the patience to decipher—has a variety of handbags and satchels hanging in the window. I wonder how much the store owners were paid to be just what we needed.

Brennan slips through the broken window. “Ow,” he says.

I turn away, rolling my eyes.

“Mae, I think I cut myself.”

“Are you bleeding?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, at least you know.”

I hear rustling; he’s in. I imagine he’s looking back, watching me. Making sure I don’t run. As if I have the energy for anything so dramatic.

“Hurry up!” I call. Above me, the gray sky rumbles. I think of the plane, but this is only thunder. “You should probably get a rain jacket too,” I tell him. “Or a poncho.” This seems like the kind of place that would stock ponchos. Not practical, packable ones like the one I have, but something heavy and rainbow-colored, for irony.

A minute later he’s out. He doesn’t have a coat or a poncho, but he’s holding a backpack. It’s shiny and striped like a zebra.

“Is that the only one they had?” I ask.

He kneels and starts tucking his supplies into the pack, plastic bags and all. “I like it,” he says.

“To each his own.” Maybe I shouldn’t be belittling a featured product, but it’s an
ugly
bag. Brennan zips the backpack closed and swings it over his shoulder. I start walking.

“Mae, look what else I found.” He holds out his hand and I stop to look. Matches. Six or seven booklets, dark blue, with the same indecipherable scrawl on the cover as was on the storefront.

“Good,” I say. “We won’t have to stop again.” I take the matches and put them in my pocket with my glasses lens.

A few steps later he asks, “Do you have any Band-Aids?”

“How bad is it?” He holds up his arm. His sleeve is pushed back. I can’t see any blood on the dark expanse of his arm, it’s too far away, the cut too small. I shrug off my backpack and take out my first-aid kit. “Here,” I say, handing him antibiotic ointment and a pack of bandages. He seems surprised. Maybe he expected me to dress the wound for him. “Time’s a-tickin’,” I say. That startles him into action, and he tends to his arm. The sky rumbles again, louder. I predict Brennan will soon regret not taking something waterproof from Loopy Cursive.

I’m right. Hours later he drips and shivers in the rain. “Mae, can we
please
sleep inside tonight?” he begs. My pants are tucked into my boots, my poncho hood up. My thighs and shins are wet, but otherwise I’m fine.

“No,” I say.

“The owners are gone. They won’t care.”

I suck in my top lip to keep from yelling.

“Mae, I’m freezing.”

“I’ll help with your shelter,” I say. “Show you how to keep the wind out.”

He doesn’t answer. His sneakers squelch with each step. Lightning cracks the horizon. Seconds later, thunder booms. I feel the ground shake. We’ve moved out of the tourist-trap town and into the suburbs. This is why they broke my glasses, I think. So they can send me through areas like this and all they have to do is empty the houses for a few hours. I wonder what that costs, a couple hundred per family? All to fuck with me. And to gain viewers, because I have to admit, if I weren’t here, if I weren’t a contestant, I’d watch this show. I’d soak in their vision of mangled familiarity, and I’d love it.

Another rumble of thunder. All the houses are taller than we are, so I’m not worried about lightning strikes. Although, there isn’t much detritus for building shelters here and we might not reach forest by nightfall. I might have to compromise. A shed, I think. I won’t go into another of their staged houses, but I could compromise with a shed or a garage.

“Why can’t we just wait until the rain stops,” says Brennan. “This is stupid.”

You’re stupid,
I think. He’s the one who didn’t take a jacket when he had the chance. His contract must prohibit covering his sweatshirt, the cameras hidden there. In which case he’s stupid for signing it.

Not that I was any smarter, signing mine.

“You’ve already slowed me down enough,” I say. “I’m not losing the afternoon.”

“Slowed you down going
where
?” he asks, stopping. “The city? It’s empty, Mae. Trash and rats, that’s probably all that’s left by now. We need to find a farm, somewhere we can stay.”

“Is that where you were going before you latched on to me?” I ask. “To find a farm, milk a cow, and steal eggs from a hen?”

He twitches. “Maybe.”

“Then go,” I burst. “Find yourself some farmer’s daughter who got left behind and is feeling lonely. Don’t worry, if her daddy’s still around, you’ll either win him over or he’ll die. Make sure to find yourself a gun, though, to protect yourself from raiders. Or you can go Medieval retro, use a bow and arrow. I’m sure it’s as easy as it looks. Beware anyone calling himself Chief, or the Governor. And protect that little lady of yours, because evil always has rape on its mind.”

He stares at me, rain pouring over his face. “What are you talking about?”

Every post-apocalypse plot, ever, I think. I turn away. I want to get out of this town, fast. I hear the
squish squish
of Brennan following.

“This isn’t a movie, Mae,” he says.

I laugh.

He shoves me from behind, hard. Surprised, I fall forward, landing in a sprawl in a puddle. The heels of my hands shriek as I push myself up. They’re shredded from the pavement, dripping red. My right knee pounds.

“Fuck you,” I say, turning to face him. “Fuck. You.” I want to smash in his cloudy face. I’ve never punched a person. I need to know how it feels. I need to see him bleed.

No hitting anyone in the face or genitals.

Let them stop me.

He’s a kid.

He’s old enough.

He’s scared.

So am I.

You
have
to follow the rules.

He takes a step backward. “Mae, I’m sorry,” he says. He’s crying, again. “I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry.”

My fists are too tight.

“Please,” he says, “I’ll go wherever you want. Just don’t leave me.”

I unfurl my hands. “If you say one more word,” I tell him, “you’re on your own.” He opens his mouth and I raise a finger. “One more word, Brennan, and I’m gone. And if you touch me again, I don’t care what they say, I’ll break your fucking face. Understood?”

He nods, terrified.

Good.

For the rest of the day, he’s quiet. If not for his soggy footsteps and the occasional sniffle, I could forget he’s with me. It’s blissful, in a way, and yet, without his prattling, I’m alone again.

I’m cold now, and my wet pants chafe my skin. Brennan must be miserable. It’ll be night soon and the storm’s only getting worse.

Brennan sneezes.

We’re passing a development of crammed-together McMansions. Billboards announce new construction, leases available. Houses, not homes.

If he gets sick, he’s only going to slow me down more. No matter my earlier threats, I know they won’t let me leave my cameraman behind.

I turn in to the development. The streets are named after trees. Elm, Oak, Poplar. I turn on Birch, because when I was little and a winter storm coated all the trees with ice—half an inch, but it seemed endless—the white birches bent the farthest, rounding their trunks like great humps. When the ice melted, the white birches also sprang most readily back toward the sky. Few were able to straighten entirely—all these years later many are still bowed—but they didn’t snap, and I’ve always liked that about them.

The second house on the left side of Birch Street catches my eye. It looks like all the others, except that there’s a sign out front that reads in blue
OPEN HOUSE
—and I know I am where I’m meant to be. I try the front door. Locked.

“Wait here,” I tell Brennan. I circle to the backyard. My attempts to jimmy open a kitchen window fail. I’ll need to break it. There’s nothing useful in the back, so I return to the front of the house. The wooden post from which the
FOR SALE
sign hangs is crooked and loose, like I’m meant to take it. I feel Brennan watching me as I yank the sign out of the ground. When I get back to the window, I smash it with the sign post. The rain’s so loud I barely hear the glass break. I drop the sign, clear away the shards, and crawl through into a pristine kitchen. Leaving a dripping trail through a cathedral-ceilinged foyer to the front door, I let in Brennan and set the deadbolt behind him. Off the foyer, two adjacent rooms are staged with copious seating: long plush couches and deep armchairs. In one, the seating is arranged around a dusty flatscreen television, at least sixty inches. In the other, the focal point is a fireplace. There’s a stack of Duraflame logs along one wall. A sponsor, probably.

I check the ceiling and see only a smoke detector. They don’t need as many mounted cameras now that Brennan’s with me.

The logs have instructions printed on their brown paper wrappers. Even Brennan can’t mess this up; I toss him a book of matches and go to explore upstairs. I hold my breath every time I open a door, but this house is nothing like the blue cabin. It’s huge, anonymous, empty. Stocked but not lived-in. I open a bathroom vanity and pour rubbing alcohol from the top shelf over my palms. The scrapes aren’t bad enough to bother bandaging. In the master bedroom, I open closets and drawers until I find a pair of fleece pajama pants; I shuck my wet pants and pull these on. I find a men’s plaid pajama set for Brennan and then go back downstairs. I toss him the clothing and lay out my pants, boots, and socks by the fire.

“Go change,” I say, “and we’ll dry out your clothes.”

“Are we—” A look of horror crosses his face.

“It’s all right. You can talk. Just not so much, okay?”

He nods rapidly. “Are we stopping here?” he asks. “For the night?”

“Yes.”

It seems the silence has done him good. He pauses for several seconds and then says, “Thanks, Mae.”

“Go change.”

The pantry is stocked with organic vegetarian canned soups and mac and cheese with animal-shaped noodles. I heat up a can of Tuscan bean and rice soup for myself, and then make the mac and cheese for Brennan, substituting a can of condensed milk for the dairy called for by the box. He polishes off the entire pot’s worth and then collapses on a couch with a sigh. Moments later, he’s snoring. The sound isn’t as annoying as it used to be. In fact, it makes the house feel a little less big.

I toss a quilt over him, then wrap myself in another. The couches are too soft; I sit on the rug, facing the fire and holding a cup of herbal tea. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep here. Although, I checked all the rooms, so it should be okay. I hope it will be okay.

And if it’s not, if something happens tonight, it’ll be something new. Maybe they’ll pump locusts down the chimney or toss some timber rattlesnakes through the broken window. Send in remote-controlled bats with exaggerated fangs. Or maybe my marauders will make their debut.

I know it’s useless to try to predict their depravity, but I can’t help trying. It makes sitting here, waiting, in this massive, ghostly house a little easier. I’m confident that whatever they do, they won’t do it until later. They’ll wait until I’m asleep—or nearly asleep—to strike. That’s how they do it; they blur the line between reality and nightmare. They give me bad dreams, and then they make them come true.

The worst was the cabin. The too-blue cabin I can’t forget, no matter how hard I try.

I found the cabin two days after Wallaby left me. I was following the last Clue given me.
Look for the sign past the next creek,
it said. I’d found a dry creek bed just hours from my camp, but there was no sign, so I kept walking, searching. I was beginning to fear I was off course, lost, and then there it was: a little brook babbling,
You found me, you found me.
Just downstream a culvert, a road, a driveway. And my sign, obvious, if unexpected: a swath of baby-blue balloons tied to a mailbox, dancing, drifting. I followed their driveway to a small single-story cabin, blue, with a stubby chimney. There were more balloons tied by the front door and a gray welcome mat. I remember bright fish swimming the mat’s perimeter, framing the words
HOME SWEET HOME
and smiling frozen cartoon smiles—though I didn’t yet recognize this as my next Clue.